"My kids don't go to prom" and other things that are painful

 It has been very very long since I have written anything here.  I just skimmed through my previous posts.  I couldn't really read them because they are so painful.  However, I think I may have been in a similar place them that I am now which is that no one understands me AND I can't even explain it to people for one reason or another.  I finally got to the point where I realized there is almost no one that I can share this with without having unintended negative effects.

Having atypical kids is a type of grief.  Having never experienced really true death grief (I have been very fortunate), I can't adequately compare it but the way I will describe it is as follows:  No one gets it.  No one.  Just our family.  Strike that.  Just my husband and even then he has his own version of it, not the same as mine.  

Let's start with this... Growing up in my family, you toed the line.  We were probably textbook upper-middle class.  I took AP classes, I got good grades, I took the SAT five fucking times (once a year starting in middle school).  I went to a very competitive 4-year university straight out of high school.  My brother was the same.  We were comedically typical.  Now, I wasn't particularly happy but that didn't matter.  I was still expected to be the good child, the good student, etc.  That's what I did.

My children are, um, not that.  At all.  Not even a little bit.  None of them.  All of my kids are atypical for one reason or another.  My husband and I are not like my parents.  I was so depressed for so long that I definitely didn't want to make that mistake with my kids so we have always been very supportive and encouraging about who they are, even if it's not exactly popular or mainstream.  

For starters, none of my kids drive, not my 19 y.o., not my 17 y.o.  Maybe my 15 y.o. will.  I was banging down the DMV door the moment I turned 15.5 so that I could get my learner's permit.  I big chunk of why my kids don't drive is financial.  If we could afford to insure them, we'd have pushed the issue but we can't so we don't.  I don't have any "uh oh another newly licensed driver in the house" photos in front of the DMV.

H went to his school for atypical kids, with his severe learning disabilities and his mental health struggles, until he graduated and got a job in the deli at the grocery store.  A (the middle child) goes to an alternative school for a number of reasons, but to put it most simply, the anxiety of being a trans kid at a conservative school.  S is still at traditional school but he is not fitting in.  It's not bad enough for us to pull him out but it's not good.  I was going to say that facebook is killing me but it's not just facebook, it's everything.  My kids are difficult and moody - I don't have first day of school photos, let alone photos with cute little chalkboards.  My kids haven't been to any school dances.  We don't have prom photos, homecoming photos, nothing.  We haven't gone to visit colleges, no fun photos of that.  We most certainly don't have any "when you see your heart outside of your body as you leave your child at college" photos.  

So here's the problem... this is the sort of thing that most people don't realize is privilege.  People don't realize how painful it is to see other kids doing typical things when your kids aren't doing them.  That fact makes it extremely difficult to talk about with even the closest of friends.  Most people don't like to be called out on their privilege. I get it.  It's uncomfortable and embarrassing ("someone else saw a flaw in me that I didn't see first").  To tell my friends that "it makes me so sad to see all of these kids having such great, healthy, typical experiences," it translates into "why do you have to rub my nose in the fact that I don't have kids who have great, healthy typical experiences."  I don't want them to not have those experiences; I wish we had them.  

The worst part is that I absolutely cannot and will never not be able to think I ruined my kids into this.  If they didn't suffer from such a bad case of Shitty Mom Syndrome (SMS), may they'd be going to prom, too.  So in addition to not wanting to make my friends feel guilt, I also don't want to stir up any shaming they may be directing at me.  I already feel like a shitty mom, I don't need anyone else to tell me that my kids are fuckups because I'm such a shitty mom.  But when we are made uncomfortable (like when someone says that they're painfully envious of your kids' high levels of functioning), we often default to blaming/shaming those who have kids who are aren't that.

And that, my friends, is why I'm here.  This has been bouncing around in my head for years but I finally got around to it coalescing in my mind.  I am painfully envious of my friends with their typical kids.  I ache to have my kids go to dances and participate in extracurricular activities.  The idea of my kids not going to college of any kind right out of high school guts me.  And there is no one I can talk to about this who won't feel personally attacked by this.  In a way I am personally attacking ("stop showing of your typical kids' typical lives") but there is no way to remove that part of my ache.  I will inherently make people feel bad when I don't really (but kinda do) mean to.  

I just want normal kids with normal problems but that is not the hand that I was dealt or the hand that I created.

I really hate myself

 I do. I hate myself.  I put my foot in my mouth all the time.  I offend people.  I just do dumb things.  I'm sure it's not bad enough for people to actually talk about it out loud when I'm not there but I'm pretty sure many people I interact with reflect on our interaction and roll their eyes or laugh.  

The worst part is that I'm 90% sure this is depression.  I'm 90% sure that this is crazy.  But not 100%, so I entertain and feed and fan that 10%.  It's almost an audible thing.  I know I talk to myself out loud all the time (all the time - I catch myself doing it and I see other catch me doing it).  Lately I wonder if I'm arguing with myself out loud.  I think I am sometimes.

I just feel like I'm fucking up every little thing I ever touch.  I'm SUCKING at prepping for class.  I'm SUCKING at managing Thing 3's spending problem.  I'm SUCKING at having compassion for Thing 3.  I just want to watch netflix and chill, but totally serious.  Just do nothing.  Watch TV, play bee swarm simulator, do nothing, talk to no one.  I feel like a complete imposter when it comes to anti-racism.  Now I'm branching out and ruining things in my trans ally world.  

I am dying to yell this to everyone, like with a bullhorn on the street corner.  I don't want anyone to blow smoke up my ass, try to convince me I'm not horrible.  I just want people to say "Damn.  That feel fucking sucks.  I'm sorry you feel that way.  That's the worst feeling."  But I'm trying so hard to look like I have my shit together.  I feel like Lloyd Braun.  I can't say anything because then people will know that I'm actually just faking it.  So I keep faking it and not saying anything to anyone.

I know that #blacklivesmatter and I feel like I'm not pulling my weight and I'm sorry

I understand ‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬ as much as I think anyone with the amount of privilege someone like me has. I really understand it and have never questioned its validity, importance, and, unfortunately, its necessity. That said, I can't watch this stuff. Videos in my feed. Articles. It makes me literally feel sick to my stomach. I made the mistake of watching the execution of Nicholas Berg (the contractor who was killed on video shortly after 9/11 - I can't even bring myself to say or write the word that describes the manner in which he was killed). That was stupid of me. I had no idea how horrific it would be. I thought it would be horrific but it was qualitatively and exponentially more horrific than I could've ever imagined. I had nightmares and flashbacks for quite some time. Then I accidentally watched the video of the young man who was killed a year or two ago. I can't remember his name but he was the 2nd man in Ferguson. I tried googling just now to try and find his name and there were so many video links, so many articles, SO MANY NAMES, that I had to give up. I didn't want to click on any of them. I accidentally saw that video thinking it was an amateur documentary. I continued to think/hope that until the moment the gunfire started. That was also horrific. Watching anyone take anyone else's life feels so unnatural to me, like cannibalism and incest. I screamed so long and hard, a blood-curdling scream that made my husband come running in from the garage to see what was the matter. I sobbed hard, to the point that I couldn't talk, for five minutes? Ten minutes? I don't know. What I do know is that I can't handle this hate, what these killings represent, knowing it is just the tip of the conscious or unconscious iceberg. I have the similar feeling about Trump supporters, knowing that he has significant support, knowing they are walking among us, not knowing who they are, but knowing what they stand for. I can't imagine living my life with this kind of fear and distrust. The closest I get to it is the feeling of being a woman in an unsafe situation but, at least for me, those occur so much less frequently as I've gotten older. In fact, I almost never even felt that while I was working in prison. Ha. Talk about privilege. In hindsight, that was so silly, the inappropriate confidence I had. The fear only ever broke through when I had to walk across one small section of the yard which was out of sight of the gun tower. Every time I did that (several times a day), I would look over my shoulder, take a deep breath, and book it until I got out of the blind spot. I can't begin to imagine feeling that every day. I really can't imagine letting my kids out of my sight knowing that they do or, even worse SHOULD feel that every day.

Anyway, I just can't see this anymore. I do what I can in my own little world. I am vocal (duh), or at least I try to be. I feel like that's the best I can offer. But this trauma... I can't do it. I feel like I'm shirking my responsibility in the situation because so many people live it and I only have to see it but... I can't do it. This is all just so heartbreaking. :-(

 This is a long and rambling post but I feel like I'm bursting with all of this. I hope I have the guts to leave it up because I feel like such a jerk for not being able to handle it, feeling like that makes me part of the problem. *This* is the best I can do today in order to try to be part of the solution and it is pathetic at best and I'm sorry.

I ran into a former very close friend over the weekend.  It was at a place where I'm sure neither of us would expect to find the other.  Add to that the facts that I was wearing a wig and she appeared to be more than a bit tipsy.  We were 5 feet from each other for 15 minutes and she never recognized me.   I never approached her and while I'm glad I didn't follow my knee-jerk urge to approach her the moment I saw her, I wish I had talked to her at some point after I'd gathered my wits.  She is one of the friends who I've lost because of... well, I don't know how to word it.  I suppose, to be direct, it was because of H's crash-and-burn at age 4 and my handling of it.  We were very close.  Our kids were also very close - nearly daily contact.  When H fell apart and I fell apart as I tried to deal with him, she told me that she didn't want to be around us and she didn't want her kids to be around us.  She told me that I was the reason H was falling apart.  She basically told me that I was ruining him.  She was one of the first people to articulate this in no uncertain terms.  I've said it before and I'll say it again... "Bad" kids create "bad" moms in the same way that "bad" moms create "bad" kids.

It always been a struggle not to believe that my son is suffering from SMS - Shitty Mom Syndrome - no more, no less.  Conversations like this, along with the unspoken statements I see around me as if we're contagious, do a really good job cementing that belief.  It's so much easier to think that I'm the problem as opposed to my child having a serious, perhaps lifelong, disability.

I wanted to tell her that we have a diagnosis.  That he is so disabled that he has to be in a special school.  Most importantly, that despite the fact that *I* ruined H, I've somehow managed to spare my other two children.  I'd also loved to hear how her kids are doing because I'd love to know that they are doing well and my children would love to know as they ask about them.  If they are doing well, as they should be, statistically speaking, I'd love to tell her to be so glad for that.  I would told her that I was happy not only for her children but for her.  I would've told her I'm jealous because I'd love to be able say I have three typical kids.  I would've told her that I think if given one wish, I'd wish for what she has along the luxury of being able to be sure that "bad" kids were merely the result of "bad" moms.  As it is, thanks in part to feedback I get from others (the rest is a natural outgrowth of mommy guilt), I only think that some of the time and, unfortunately, in my situation it is self-directed as opposed to directed at anyone else.

Oh, how I wish happiness really was a choice!

If happiness really was a choice, and not just a neurochemical state of being, who the fuck would choose to be unhappy?

The other night I had a horrible night.  I don't even know why.  I think I was overwhelmed with work, not understanding the technology I needed to understand in order to set up for my next class.  The house was a wreck.  Everyone was needing everything from me.  I was in a bad place.  I just went to my room with a couple of beers, cried, and then binge watched all of The Jinx*,  I was just so SAD.  I am often in a mixed state which, to me, means I'm angry and irritable and short-tempered and generally unhappy.  But lately I've been very, very sad.  I just felt horrible.  At one point I left my room to get something and saw that my entire family was watching Jeopardy (my 10, 8, and 6-year olds - WHAT? But whatever).  It made me a million times more sad.  I was missing it.  It was 50 feet away and I was missing it.  I wasn't even busy doing something that needed to be done.  But I couldn't bring myself to be out there with them.  I just couldn't, well... I just couldn't live.

The next night, I was supposed to get together with the girls who are arguably my closest friends.  We have been friends since elementary school.  We've been through it all together.  But I feel a bit of a void has developed between us over the years for several reasons.  First, I've gotten worse and worse, emotionally, and that's what happens because people don't know how to respond to me when I'm obviously out of sorts and they don't know that they even need to respond to me at all when I'm in my good actress frame of mine.  Also, children.  Children wreak havoc on friendships.  We have kids either at different schools or in different grades or with different friends or activities and we have less time to spend with anyone outside of the new kid-centric groups.  In the beginning, there was the need to make a very quick adjustment to each other's parenting styles.  Who knew that a particular friend was down with using dessert as a bribe for eating dinner (I am not)?  Who knew that a particular friend would have easy kids and could be laid back about everything and they would take issue with the fact that I was such a horrible mom because I couldn't handle my soon-to-be diagnosed as mentally ill child.  But finally, I've made a couple of very huge mistakes in recent years of which I am unbelievably ashamed.  Most of my friends don't know.  Some know.  I think one who knows has distanced herself because of it.  But the bottom line of that is that I feel like I carry some huge dark secrets that I can't share.  I know that I'd lose some friends over it and I'd easily say good riddance to those friends.  But I'm afraid of the grapevine and I don't want my kids' peers parents to know.  I dread the day that I have to talk to my kids about it.  So I keep quiet and I feel like there's an elephant in the room.  My psychiatrist and psychologist insist that I made these mistakes while I was acutely manic, undiagnosed and untreated (undertreated for the 2nd extremely less serious episode).  It's easier for me to think I'm an asshole.**

Anyway, back to going out with friends... I barely felt up to it but I dragged myself there.  In the end, I had an okay time.  I'm glad I went though I don't know that I would've regretted not going.  But the relevant part is this:  One of my friends wrote a facebook post earlier that day about how grateful she was for her family and her life and how she was reassessing what mattered and what didn't and was trying to focus on what did.  It is not like her to even post on facebook at all so the girls asked about it.  She said that the night before, she felt like she was in a huge "pit of despair."

She said she felt like her children were the spawn of the devil, that her husband ignores her, that her house is a wreck, that nothing is going right, that she can't even run away because she has no where to go.  She said her sister called and tried to cheer her up to no avail.  Eventually she went to sleep and when she woke up...



SHE WAS HAPPY!!

She said that she realized she had a great life and that she just needed to pull her head out of her ass and realize she had a fucking awesome life.

The end.






I'll say it again:  Wait...What?  It sounds like she and I may have had relatively similar evenings the night before but we have clearly had very different days following that.  I cannot remember a time in my life when I thought, "I realized I have a great life and I shouldn't be so upset."  I would give ANYTHING for that epiphany.  If I thought it would stick, I might give LITERALLY ANYTHING for that epiphany.  It must be nice to just do a little depression drive-by and not hunker down, plant roots, and build a big ol' brick fortress solidly in the center of Miseryville.

It gave me a bit of insight into the people who say that happiness is a choice or that depressed people could just stop focusing on the negative and all would be good.  My stock response to that is 1) how fortunate you to not know how wrong you are and 2) happiness not a choice.  It is a neurobiochemical state of the brain.

Sometimes I try to imagine what life would be like if I were happy or if I hadn't fucked my life up with bad decisions that I've made while not feeling good.  I can hardly imagine it.  I look at childhood photos and I think, "That girl has no idea what shit is coming her way and I don't know how I'd prepare her for it even if there were such a thing as time travel."  I'm sure many people feel like their lives didn't turn out as good as they'd hoped.  But I really feel like mine is a bit of a disaster.  Truly.

I promise to not be such a downer next time.  I have a lot to say about Steven Avery (and his attorneys), Brendan Dassey, and, mostly about the legal system.  I have a lot to say about Michael Peterson & that "investigation."  I have a few things to say about Robert Durst as well.  Oh, and Adnan Syed.  At least my life isn't that type of trainwreck but the thing about depression, especially for a depressed person who has worked in the criminal "justice" system, I have no delusions about my security from getting pulled into such a thing.  They call it "depressed realism."







* Robert Durst is one creepy fuck.  Cah-reepy.  I was about to wax poetic on that but I think I'll write a separate entry about this whole genre.  More later.

** I don't believe I've discussed my theory of the differential diagnosis of "asshole" yet.  I'll get there.

Lather, rinse, repeat

I just started a new entry and I was going to entitle it "Depression is a bitch" but that sounded familiar.  I went back and looked and my most recent post was titled, "Depression, you bitch."  If that doesn't tell you how it goes, I don't know what does.  Whatever I wrote in that last post, copy & paste here.

You've heard it before but I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.  If you've never thought about it in terms of mental illness, please do so.  I'm so motherfucking sick and tired or being so motherfucking sick and tired.  

I've been crying because I made a typo in an email to our payroll people.  My 6-year old just came back in, 30 mins later, and asked if I was feeling better.  I'm feeling better about the goddamn typo that's probably going to cost us $50.  But I'm not feeling better about the fact that my child feels the need to check in on my well-being.  

When will his get better?  Everyone says it gets better.  Everyone is a liar.  It has never gotten better.  I can't imagine it ever getting better.  My poor children.  My poor husband.  Last night he said something about how different my life would've been if I'd married someone with money instead of him.  Is he fucking joking?  If I'd married anyone but him, I'd be alone right now because I can't imagine anyone putting up with my bullshit.  I can't even begin to understand how he does.  He said, "Well, at least you'd have money."  That gave me pause.  Yes, I'd have money.  But I'd still have the same brain and same neurochemistry and I still think I have the best psychiatrist money can buy so.... 

I would just give anything to have anything resembling the life I thought I'd have when I was in high school and college.  Even when I got married.

P.S.  The opposite of happiness is binge watching The Jinx on HBOGO in your bedroom while the rest of your family watches Jeopardy and feeling like there is nothing you can do to change the situation.  This really is the gift that keeps giving.

Depression, you bitch.

Mental illness is a bitch.  A cunt, even.  Just when you start feeling like things will be okay, she shows up to ruin the party.




Charlie Brown is a fantastic example of depression and anxiety.  If you haven't seen the recent Peanuts movie and want to understand what depression & anxiety is, I highly recommend it.  Here's a guy who can't win, if even only in his mind.  When he doesn't win IRL, that's all the evidence he needs.  Trying to kick that damn football is the story of my life.



I keep trying to be positive.  I keep trying to be successful.  And I keep not.  Then not only have I been unsuccessful (in being happy, in doing something, whatever the case may be), I've completely sucked in my judgement of thinking I ever had any hope of kicking that fucking ball.

I have the world's best husband.  He is unconditionally supportive.  He rarely gets angry with me for being an angry, mixed-state* bitch.



He may have patience for me and he may accept that I feel miserable even if he doesn't really understand.  I can only imagine how difficult it must be to watch a loved one be in pain and not know what do to help.  Today he told me that I had to stay positive.  I'd love to.  That would be fabulous.  And that, my friends, would be the end of the depression.  I can't remember the last time I genuinely felt positive (at least not without immediately having the sensation of the "whoooof" that happened as I kicked the football that was no longer there).

Today I sobbed while my 8-year old child held me.  That is so wrong in so many ways.  A child should not be responsible for soothing her parent.  And that thought made me sob harder.  I am constantly apologizing for being and angry and sad.  If the world at large can't understand this, how can a child?

You wanna know what kicked off this downward spiral today?  My son dropped a little dish of ranch and it managed to cover every surface (including the underside of the breakfast bar) as it made its way down and crashed.  I didn't even get angry (for a change).  But I cried.  He apologized and started to clean it up but I knew it would only make it worse.  1) He's 10.  2) He's a boy.  3) His fine motor skills leave much to be desired.

A mess of ranch dressing = thoughts of needing to be hospitalized and thinking about whether or not a suicided (I just made that up, I think it's fitting, sort of like "murdered") mom is better than an emotionally unstable mom.

Life really is unfair and there is nothing that says everyone, sooner or later, will no longer suffer.  Lifelong suffering is possible, very, very possible.

I stick around for H.  It's one thing to have to live with a suicided mom.  It's another thing to have to live with that AND to have no one to fight for you in school or in life.  Today, I just realized the strongest argument I have for sticking around.  I don't see any way around that argument.  Lucky me.






*Bipolar disorder is made up of manic episodes, depressive episodes, and/or mixed episodes.  Interestingly, one does not ever have to have a depressive episode to meet the criteria of bipolar disorder.  I heard Charlie Sheen once say that one of the many reasons he didn't think he had bipolar disorder was because he was never depressed.  He was wrong about so very many things.  Another common misconception is that someone with bipolar disorder swings from high to low very quickly.  Not so.  In fact, a person is characterized as having rapid-cycling bipolar disorder if they have more than 4 different mood episodes IN A YEAR.  I think the lay person doesn't understand how deep a mood episode is, with roots, like a deep wave that holds a person hostage.  It's not just a little ankle-biter wave.  A person is said to have ultra rapid-cycling bipolar disorder if they have more than 4 episodes in a month.  I think I'm probably one of those lucky people.  I also never get the euphoria that goes with full-blown mania.  That's probably good because that often lands people in the hospital but I often wish I did, just for some reprieve from the suffocating darkness.  I usually have what are called mixed-episodes.  I found this on a website and it is the most accurate description I've found.  Most places just say that it's an episode where both manic and depressive episodes can be found, alternating.

Mixed state (also called mixed mania):

A period during which symptoms of a manic and a depressive episode are present at the same time. People who experience mixed states describe feeling activated and “revved up,” but also full of anguish and despair. Rapid, pressured speech can co-exist with impulsive, out-of-control thoughts of suicide and self-destruction or aggression. Hopelessness, irritability, uncontrollable swings between racing thoughts and a feeling of “being in blackness” can all happen over the course of minutes.

I teach about mixed episodes and it wasn't until a week or two ago that I really realized I was in the midst of one.  The way I describe it when I teach, and I was probably unconsciously describing my experience because almost nothing ever describes it this way, is having the yucky feelings of depression with the pressured amplification that goes along with mania.  It's like depression on speed.  And lots of rage.  Did I mention that I broke the glass topper on my desk this week?  It's been awhile since I've broken anything so there's that.  Anyway, mixed episode = the opposite of fun.